6.14.2009

Boomshakalaka

That's Chiranjeevi, the most famous Tollywood actor of all-time, schooling some creeps on the hardwood in the greatest finish to a basketball game film patrons have ever seen. The people who wrote that scene had clearly only experienced the sport in NBA Jam, so they treat us to unreal handles, glowing balls, and fluctuations in the space-time continuum. Except this is way better than the game, because Acclaim never let you play a bonus sequence where you try to outrun a train.

Please note that Chiranjeevi, on the strength of such feelgood hits as Hitler (in which the protagonist's sister marries her own rapist to the delight of all) and Stalin (which has the same general premise as Pay It Forward), recently founded the Praja Rajyam political party in Andhra Pradesh. Eat your heart out, Schwarzenegger.

In 2008 I was teaching basketball to students at Shanti Bhavan a residential school for untouchable caste children in south India. The Tollywood clip attests to the level of basketball I found when I got there.